


Distinguishing Features

by divingforstones



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Belonging, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-22
Updated: 2014-05-22
Packaged: 2018-01-26 02:53:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1671992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/divingforstones/pseuds/divingforstones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“It should be a relief, not being plagued by inappropriate thoughts whenever James lingers close. Thoughts that inspectors are not exactly meant to have about their sergeants. It really should be a relief.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Distinguishing Features

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to wendymr for such helpful beta'ing and advice on this. Any errors introduced since are all mine.

 

 

 

****These Monday morning seminars are a trial. Well, Innocent calls them a new initiative in continuing professional development. Robbie calls them a trial. Of his patience, amongst other things. Some hapless sod has to give a presentation on the salient learning points from a recent case or summarise a recently–published research initiative. Anyone unlucky enough not to be on an active case sits united in a common relief that it’s not them up there and a general Monday morning gloom _._ Robbie supposes that that’s team-bonding in its way.

“Modern Community Policing and It’s Impact on Crime Rates” says the title slide.

A misplaced apostrophe. In the ruddy title. Well, not many people put time or effort into pulling these together, never mind proof-reading them. There’s a palpable feeling amongst some of the officers reluctantly present that this is sincerely _not_ what they joined the police force to do.

It’s been privately amusing Robbie to watch Innocent’s changing demeanour, week by week. She’s well able to detect the complete lack of enthusiasm under the outward compliance with her project, but there’s nothing concrete for her to object to. She’s increasingly irked, but so far she has nothing to pin her suspicions on. It reminds Robbie of how she looks whenever she’s dealing with the misdemeanours of an outwardly blamelessly polite and deferent, but clearly unchastised, one Sergeant Hathaway. Someone else is about to become far more frustrated than Innocent this morning, though, if that title slide is anything to go by.

Robbie takes advantage of the presenter’s preoccupation with his laptop to make a discreet consoling grimace across the room _._  James just smiles right back. Robbie scratches the side of his neck, slightly confused.

There’s something off this morning.

Could be, it’s Robbie himself. En route to the seminar, first thing this morning, he’d found James loitering in the corridor— _w_ _ell, come on then, sergeant_ _—_ and James had brushed against Robbie as he fell into step—well, not quite into step, funnily enough, and walking slightly behind him, but very close. And Robbie had thought, as James had brushed against him; _nothing._

Then James, before heading across to take one of the last vacant seats on the far side of the room, had let his hand linger briefly on Robbie’s arm, and; _nothing._ And now, as they finally exit the room and Robbie comes to a halt, spotting Laura approaching, James places a hand momentarily in the small of Robbie’s back, before he moves on past him. And again, there’s nothing.

“Morning,” says Laura.

James smiles at her and nods back at Robbie. “See you back in the office.” Robbie frowns after him.

“What’s wrong?” Laura asks.

“He’s not himself,” Robbie says.

Laura turns to glance after James. “Don’t know if I’d be myself,” she says matter-of-factly. “If I had to sit through presentations from my esteemed colleagues first thing on a Monday morning.”

“But—” What can he say, though? But the apostrophes didn’t bother him? He’s smiling really pleasantly but it doesn’t feel as warm? He supposes he could tell her the truth.

‘Look, Laura,’ he could say, ‘after you and I went out, and then called it a day, I have this reawakened thing for touch. And James keeps filling that gap with his own warm self. He comes just that bit closer, that bit more often, like he can sense that he’s more than welcome to. Like he knows he’s sort of breached my perimeters and I haven’t got much resistance left. I don’t even want to resist. Because lately he’s been causing these unholy thoughts to come into me mind whenever he brushes against me. And now, suddenly, today, he isn’t. Nothing. And I don’t think it’s me acquiring some sense at last.’

“That new haircut doesn’t suit him very well, I suppose,” Laura remarks into his extended silence. “Looks better longer, doesn’t it? Robbie? You okay yourself?” He looks down at her. She’s fixing him with a quizzical expression now _._

“Yeah,” says Robbie quickly. “Yeah.”

It should be a relief, not being plagued by inappropriate thoughts whenever James lingers close. Thoughts that inspectors are not exactly meant to have about their sergeants _._ It really should be a relief.

He’s made a reasonable start on the pile of mail in his in-tray by the time James wanders into their office _._ Right behind him comes Innocent with much more purpose in her step. Robbie suppresses a sigh. He knows when she’s on a mission. And she is. She darkens her eyebrows at him, once he’s finished answering her initial queries about a recent case summary. “You could _attempt_ to look less like you’re there under duress,” she says in more acidic tones. "Set a better example as a senior officer. Or you may find yourself rapidly bumped up the list of presenters.”

“Sooner’s better than later,” comes James’s voice, nonchalant.

“That’s the spirit,” Innocent says approvingly, departing again before Robbie can recover. He stares over at James instead, as James, elbow on his desk and chin resting in his cupped hand, gazes at his computer screen. That wasn’t a wind-up aimed at Robbie. That was just—glib.

“Really not yourself today, are you?” Robbie asks.

“Who else would I be?” enquires James without looking up from his monitor. Robbie sighs. Evasions. That’s probably more like it. It should be reassuring. Except that he’s now being evaded on the one topic he wants a flaming answer on.

“We agreed we could ward her off until she ran out of steam about these seminars,” he reminds James.

“I must have forgotten that somehow.”

Robbie looks at him. He suddenly knows exactly what to say; “I’m like that. Either I forget right away or I never forget.” He tilts his head a little, invitingly.

“I tend not to forget much at all,” says James pleasantly.

 _Beckett. You were meant to say Beckett._ It was Morse who’d given Robbie that play. In all its surreal strangeness. Which must be what’s brought it to mind. It feels surreal and strange in Robbie’s own office this morning.

He’d saved that bit up as soon as he’d read it and used it to get himself out of bother with Val the next time he’d come back from the shops without some essential item that he’d been dispatched to get. That’d disconcerted her, all right. Although—he’d been sent back to the shops too. But he’d have bet a good deal that James would’ve known both the quote and the play. And he’d have bet double a good deal that James couldn’t have resisted identifying it. Second nature to him.

Robbie rises abruptly. “I’m going out to get a proper coffee. And you want…”

“The usual.” James smiles again. But he doesn’t have a usual anymore. Lately, whenever Robbie is the one ordering, James has been delivering a string of ridiculous adjectives in front of the word latte, clearly aiming to get a rise out of Robbie. Extra-dry, Robbie’d had to work hard not to react to _that_ one. Dry _coffee._

Well, Robbie is going out for coffee, but he’s taking someone with him.

There are some days when he’s just very thankful that the longstanding friendship between himself and Laura managed to survive their effort at a proper relationship. Undoubtedly, the reappearance of Franco had helped prevent Robbie feeling guilty when he reckoned that he’d borne a bit more than half of the responsibility for what Laura was kind enough to call a mutual break-up. But at times like this, he’s just glad that he can still seek her advice. Because she knows James too.

***

Laura pauses in the act of lifting her cup, making another valiant effort to clarify this. “So you mean, something’s upsetting him?”

“No.” Robbie grimaces. “He’s not upset at all. I just mean—he’s not himself.”

“Well—” She’s struggling with the conundrum, he can see. He can hardly blame her. “If you think something’s wrong with him—you haven’t tried asking him, have you? No, of course not,” she mutters to herself. “Far too mundane for the two of _you_. Why be direct when one can be oblique?”

Robbie ignores that. “He’d just say that nothing’s wrong. Because he’s not upset.”

“Right…” says Laura. He’s sorely testing the limits of her patience now. Then her expression changes. “You aren’t having trouble concentrating in general at the moment, are you? Not on any new medication?”

“Stop that. There’s nothing wrong with me. It’s James, he’s not—”

“Okay, okay,” she breaks in hurriedly. “Let’s not start _that_ again.”

***

When Robbie arrives back at the open door to their office, James doesn’t raise his eyes from his paperwork. Which is bloody odd in itself.

Whenever he gets to their office and James is there, it’s like he’s already tuned in to Robbie’s presence. He may raise his head and give that almost-there bit of a smile, or he may just flick his glance sideways from his computer screen. But even if he’s too absorbed to give an acknowledgement, it’s always patently obvious he knows immediately when Robbie is back. Except right now.

Robbie takes a step closer. Then another one. There’s something—

He reaches out a hand towards a startled James and levers his fingers under his chin, raising it towards him _._ His smooth, closely-shaven, completely unblemished chin. _Jesus Christ._

***

Robbie encounters Laura again as he heads swiftly towards his car. She’s apparently been detained by the colleague she’d stopped to greet in the car park as she and Robbie had made their way back from that frustrating conversation over coffee. But she’s extricating herself now at Robbie’s rather precipitous reappearance, the frown she seems to be levelling at him a lot today already evident as she approaches. So Robbie just grasps her arm and tugs her with him. Thankfully, she’s startled enough to keep pace for a moment while he tries to sort out his thoughts. “Robbie?”

“There’s—someone in James’s flat.” And he finds that that really is the best he can explain it, for now. “At least, I hope there is. But we have to go there now.”

“I saw him drive out of here a moment ago. Not that he was acknowledging me. Why’s he driving that car? And he wants you to check if there’s someone in his flat?”

“No.”

He can see that she’s quite alarmed. Not by what he’s saying, but by him. “Let me give you a lift, then,” she says. “You want to just make a quick check that everything’s in order, right?” Robbie has a fair idea when he’s being humoured. He knows that she just doesn’t want him getting behind the wheel when she thinks he’s in a state. But at the moment he doesn’t much care.

He can’t get an answer from the number he’s dialling on the way, but he keeps trying anyway. It’s the best way he can come up with to avoid Laura’s increasingly insistent queries about recent insomnia or disorientation or the exact name of whatever blood pressure medication he’s on.

When she pulls up outside James’s flat, James’s own car is there. And Robbie can see that there’s an unmistakable tall figure moving back and forth inside. Now clearly visible, now obscured by the glare of the low winter midday sun on the window.

Laura cranes her neck to peer around Robbie. “Oh, I swear, if this is some sort of perverse trick the two of you have dreamt up, wasting my time on a Monday morning, so help me, Robbie Lewis—”

Robbie’s barely listening. “That’s James,” he mutters.

“Well, yes, obviously.” Laura is staring at him in sharp concern now.

And the tall figure inside has stilled completely, apparently arrested by the sight of Laura’s car. Robbie, in response, is out and up the steps, unlocking the exterior door, and then automatically knocking on the door to James’s flat even as he realises that that’s probably quite pointless. “It’s locked,” comes James’s voice.

Robbie fumbles to get a proper grip on the key to the little-used mortice lock which is on his own key ring, along with James’s latch key, because James, thorough James, had taken Robbie’s casual suggestion— _may as well give each other a key in case of emergencies, lad_ —rather seriously and copied and given him that one too. He suddenly finds himself swearing as he jabs the key at the lock as the reality of what's happened to James this morning hits home to him. But James is already holding the latch in the open position when Robbie finally gets the key turned and he’s pulling the door open and standing back as Robbie barges in, followed, rather more politely, by Laura.

“There,” says Robbie, to Laura, pointing one adamant finger at the scar on James’s chin. Although she has absolutely no idea what he’s on about. “There,” he says again, more to himself. He looks at James in pure relief.

But James isn’t meeting Robbie’s eyes. He looks—he looks pretty bad, actually. And he’s just staring over their heads, out the open door now.

“You got any siblings you might have omitted to tell me about, sergeant?” Robbie asks softly, trying to catch his gaze. “Genetically identical ones, like?”

James just heaves a sigh. Then he heads silently back into the main living area of his flat and drops down onto the couch.

Robbie hangs back in his small interior hall, perforce, because Laura, having closed the door, has taken a grip on his arm and pulled him back. “Robbie, _come on,_ you’d _know_ if he had an identical twin,” she mutters at him. “Especially one _that_ —identical.”

Robbie looks at her. “No, I wouldn’t.” Her eyebrows challenge him to justify that. “I know about as much about his family as you do. He doesn’t talk about them.”

“And so you don’t ask,” murmurs Laura to herself. Not like she’s really criticising though. Just like she’s acknowledging it. Robbie tugs his arm out of her grasp. He wants to get in to James. He really doesn’t look good. He looks a bit shaky. And sort of defeated. All the agitated restlessness that was on view through the window has dissipated and left something like weary resignation in its wake.

James raises his eyes when they come in. Robbie stays standing, vaguely taking in that Laura does too. He doesn’t know about Laura, but he’s too pent up to sit. And James starts to talk abruptly, the words tumbling over each other as if he’s been waiting, rehearsing, stealing himself  to give this explanation all morning. _He probably has._

“We haven’t seen each other in years, until he just turned up yesterday, I didn’t even know he’d still look that much like me. We’ve never spent much time together because my mother left Crevecoeur when we were babies and she just took Alex. My father used to say that two of us were just too much for her. I put it together, when I was older, the things my father’d said and I reckon maybe she’d had, well, untreated postnatal depression? When she left?”

Laura gives a non-committal nod, but her eyes are very kind.

“I’d go to stay with them occasionally, but my mother was always a bit—unaware. And Alex was jealous. Really jealous. I think partly because he never came to stay with us—me and my father. I don’t think my mother let him. Anyway he’d try and just mess with my head. And I couldn’t really say much.” _Because you were afraid to make trouble during your visits to your mam._

“Not the first time he’s locked me in, actually. Doesn’t normally like to repeat himself. But I suppose it’d worked so well before…” He trails off. Robbie waits, Laura quiet beside him, until James seems to come back to himself. “I panicked and broke a window that last time, which meant my visits just sort of stopped. Two of us had become too much for her again, at that stage, it seems.” There’s a casual twist of irony to the last words that makes Robbie clench his hand into a fist.

“Each unhappy family is unhappy in their own way…”murmurs Laura to herself ruefully, after a moment.

“Anna Karenina,” says James distractedly without looking at her.

“You _see,”_ says Robbie, rather emphatically, to no one in particular.

***

“He locked the windows this time too, didn’t he?” asks Laura eventually.

“What if there’d been a fire?” demands Robbie. It must have taken some powers of endurance for James not to break one again. How much longer was he going to hold out? Maybe a while considering the consequences of the last time—losing the visits to his mam. Today must’ve brought up a lot.

“Well, there wasn’t,” says Laura practically, her brief touch on his arm conveying a message to Robbie. _Calm down._ “No fire. But he took your mobile, did he, James?”

At the point of discovery, as Robbie had stood and stared speechlessly down at this bloke who wasn’t James, this Alex, just aghast at him, all Alex had said was, “you’ll find him in his flat. Probably. Seeing as he can’t get out of it.” He’d sounded rather bored. An affectation, Robbie had automatically processed, amongst the maelstrom of thoughts in his mind. “No point,” he’d added, as Robbie had immediately reached for his phone. And his smirk was a whole lot more snide than James’s smirk. Robbie had taken a step closer again, to force him to crane his neck back, and had seen a sudden flicker of doubt come across his face. “It’s a criminal offence, impersonating a police officer,” Robbie had informed him in a tone he normally reserved for the interrogation room.

“I’d hardly call this morning’s little set of activities police work—”

Robbie, one hand held up to halt his idiotic protestations, had bent down to look at that computer monitor. No, of course Alex hadn’t been able to get into any files that mattered at all, James was scrupulous about his password system, he tended to err more on the side of constantly-changing and ruddy impenetrable. Which Robbie was never going to chide him for again, frustrating as it occasionally was to have to call his sergeant when he needed access to information.

“I could arrest you on the spot,” Robbie had informed this Alex in the pleasant, considering tones that he knew could carry more weight than pure threat would with this particular sort of passive-aggressive bastard. It had been a struggle to keep his tone even, though, despite all those years of practise with suspects. The sheer urgency in getting to James, making sure he was all right and just seeing him, feeling his own proper presence again, was producing its own sort of agitation. But his words had seemed to silence Alex. Although Robbie had known, even as he said them, that he wouldn’t actually have the satisfaction of formal retribution here. He had been dimly conscious already that whatever the hell was going on, James wouldn’t want it reaching the attention of anyone in the station. Best just to get this bloody interloper out of here. But first—

Robbie had bent his head, looked straight down at Alex and, seeing as they weren’t in an interrogation room, he had let himself clamp a hand on his shoulder, hard enough to let him feel the full physical threat of Robbie’s pent-up fury. "If you come near his workplace, his home or your brother himself again, without his explicit invitation, you’d best bear in mind the resources that I can bring to bear to tracking you down. I’ll have a record written up of exactly what you’ve done this morning and of the charges I’d bring and I’d submit it at the speed of light. It’d be my sincere pleasure.”

Than he’d escorted a silent Alex straight out the little-used back entrance to the station _,_ not wanting an audience in reception to see him apparently manhandle James out to the car park if it came to that. And so he’d discovered that Alex had been invested enough in this charade, had planned it enough, to park back here and not allow people to see James apparently getting out of the wrong car this morning. Robbie, jabbing his door release code into the keypad, had kept a furious eye on this devious bastard while he did so. He’d only waited to see Alex drive off, studiously avoiding Robbie’s gaze and attempting a bored demeanour still—but in rather a hurry, despite that, Robbie had noticed. Then Robbie had headed straight back through the station, that being the quickest route to the front car park, and run into Laura.

And he’d found himself sufficiently shaken by the whole experience that he was completely unable to tell her what the hell was going on until he’d reached the reassuring presence of James.

“Here,” Robbie remembers now, “I have your phone. And your own keys, lad.”

James just nods, but looks rather relieved, making Robbie heartily thankful that he’d thought to rather forcefully relieve Alex of them. “Don’t know what he did to the landline and internet,” James offers.

“Christ, he’s thorough,” says Robbie, startled yet again.

James’s resigned shrug speaks of God only knows how many previous experiences. He looks very young sitting there. It’s entirely too easy to see the tormented child. Robbie is torn again between his longing to imagine doing violence to the adult Alex and his inability to imagine hitting a face that looks like James’s face.

“Personality disorder, by the sounds of it,” Laura mutters. “Might be a slightly contentious way of categorising it but things like this certainly make a good argument…” Then she frowns. “What in God’s name motivated him to impersonate you, though? At work? Delusions of grandeur about law enforcement?”

“No,” James murmurs very low.

Robbie looks at him.

James gives a deep sigh and scrubs both hands over his face. “We got into an argument,” he says very fast. “Stupid, really. Last night, he was having a go about the lack of close relationships in my life. Any sort of close relationships with anyone. He sees me as incapable of forming any longterm relationships. Too withdrawn and unreachable, apparently. He-who-must-not-be-known. He kept needling me about it. I kept trying to get off the topic.” His eyes move up to meet Robbie’s at last _._ Robbie grimaces. In an encouraging sort of a way, he hopes. Another sigh.

“But Alex—he kept going back to it. So I told him that he understood nothing about close relationships. That my partner at work—well, I knew him and he knew me. That he could read me and I could read him better than—And he laughed at me for reading too much into little things. And then—he obviously decided to take it a step further and prove me wrong.” He’s looking anywhere but at Robbie now.

 _Oh, God_. Robbie is appalled. James had told this tormenting bastard how important Robbie was to him, but more, and rather unbelievably for James, he’d also had the guts to claim how important he was to Robbie. Yes, he’d been goaded into it, but he’d risked thinking and saying that with all its attendant fear of rejection and being proved wrong.

And what had Robbie done? How long had it taken for him to work out that this interloper wasn’t really his James, against all James had said and hoped for? He stares at James, stricken. It turns out that there aren’t any words for this. There’s one thought bearing down on him, undeniable in its truth and he can’t voice it to James; _you thought I’d be here sooner._

But Laura, _bless her,_ is stepping in. “But James, Robbie did, he did know, it was the first thing he said to me this morning—that you weren’t yourself. He may not have known that that was literally true but his instincts about you were spot on, weren’t they?” James is looking up at her, frowning, weighing up her words.

“And then by mid-morning he’d come to take me out for a coffee —“ She completely ignores the slight involuntary jerk of Robbie’s head— _God, don’t tell him we were sipping cappuccinos while he was going through this—_ and James doesn’t notice at all because his eyes are searching Laura’s face. “Because that’s what he does, you see, when he’s truly worried about you, he seeks me out and drags me off for coffee or a pint and then goes on about you. Did you know that?” James gives a slight shake of the head. He’s utterly intent on her words. “He’s done it when you were acting out of character before. He did it when you went off to Kosovo _._ And he did it today.”

James’s eyes flick sideways to Robbie’s. _Do you?_ asks the slight movement of his eyebrows.

 _Yeah._ Robbie’s half-nod confirms it.

“And he just kept going on and _on_ about how you weren’t—” Laura is continuing rather fervently, but Robbie reckons he should take it from here.

“He’s not half as clever, is he?” He breaks in abruptly. “And he hasn’t got half as much to him. He’s a bit bland, a bit too smooth.” _He’s not you. He’s just not you._ “And he’s not”—Robbie can’t believe he’s about to say this out loud, but James has just laid himself bare in his efforts to explain, so—“Well, even though he looks exactly the same as you, he’s” — _Oh, Christ—_ “well, he’s still not half as…attractive.” Robbie eyes James’s ceiling. Neither Laura nor James say a word. Then—

“Definitely not half as dishy,” Laura helpfully puts in. “Must be the unique personality behind the looks after all.”

“Might be,” demurs James. Robbie can hear something else beneath the obvious embarrassment in his voice. He risks dropping his own eyes to meet James’s. Then he drops down on the couch right beside James, brushing against him as he settles back. James seems to let his body relax a little towards him. It feels like it anyway. And there it is. That’s not nothing, that feeling that stirs in Robbie when James, shifting a little more to accommodate Robbie now, brushes against him too. That’s not nothing at _all._

Laura gives them both a small smile. “Well, one of us needs to go back to work today. I wouldn’t mind getting home at a reasonable hour this evening _._ Some people have a social life to maintain.”

“I should probably head in too,” says James reluctantly. He doesn’t look in a fit state to go anywhere _._

“No, you don’t,” Robbie informs him. “There’s nothing that requires our presence in a hurry. Nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow.”

He wonders if James realises from that that he really means to stay for as long as he’s wanted. Laura seems to. She’s pressing her lips inward in the way that she does when she’s suppressing a smile. “And what’ll I tell Jean?” she asks. “That one of you wasn’t well and the other one took him home?”

“Anything but the truth,” says James feelingly. Robbie can’t help but give a slight chuckle.

“Sorry, lad,” he says immediately. “Just the thought of Laura trying to explain to Innocent that that was your identical twin this morning in her seminar. Wouldn’t you like to be a fly on the wall?”

James actually starts to grin. Laura just rolls her eyes at them, but Robbie can take a good guess that she’s as relieved as he is, really, to see James starting to look more like himself. His actual scarred _-_ chin self. God, this is all a bit much for a Monday. “I’m off,” Laura says. “Nice to have you back, James.”

James makes no attempt to suppress his answering smile at her. It _is_ a unique smile he has, such a different smile somehow from all the lacklustre, pleasant attempts Alex had aimed at Robbie this morning. Robbie just gestures at him to stay put. Then he follows Laura out and opens the door for her. “Thanks,” he says warmly.

She surprises him with a quick kiss on the cheek. “Might be a good time to talk to him, you know,” she says casually.

It’s really not the worst idea. But when he goes back in James has slipped down, letting his head fall back on the top of the couch. And when Robbie settles back down beside him, the first thing that strikes him is James’s pallor. ”You look shattered.”

“Couldn’t really sleep with him here last night. And then when I did I woke up and he was gone.”

“And you’ve been pacing round here, wearing a track in the carpet since.” _Too agitated to think properly about how to get out. Or sleep. Or settle to anything. Waiting and thinking that you were wrong about me. About us._

“Sit up straight there a minute,” Robbie says to him.

“Don’t think I could if I tried to,” mumbles James.

Robbie reaches up his hand and gives a poke with one finger to the back of his neck. “Oi!” James sits up straight, regarding him indignantly.

Robbie drops his arm along the top of the couch. James looks quite mollified. He settles back, slouching back down, shifting his head about slightly, until his neck is comfortable on Robbie's arm. His head is quite close to Robbie's shoulder.

Robbie lets his hand dangle down from the back of the couch, a little obviously. _Invitation offered._ And after a moment, James’s hand lifts slowly up to claim it, sliding his fingers through Robbie's. _Invitation accepted._ Robbie moves his own fingers over James's knuckles, to and fro, to let him know that yes, that's exactly what he meant. And they rest in silence for a while. Outward silence, anyway. Robbie reckons he can practically hear James’s brain whirring, turning over thoughts, producing and rejecting things to say. Or maybe that’s just Robbie’s own restless mind.

“He won’t go back to the station if that’s worrying you,” James says eventually. That hadn’t even made it onto the list of things that’s preoccupying Robbie right at this moment. “But you could check if you wanted to—”

His uncertain tone seems to want Robbie to, despite his words. Robbie reaches for his phone with his free hand.  “Gurdip? Yeah, it’s Lewis. Do us a favour, would you? See if you can find James anywhere. Have a good look. Let me know? Appreciate it.”

“Good choice,” murmurs James as Robbie ends the call.

“Aye. Well, Gurdip will be thorough. And he may think that’s a bit strange but he won’t go broadcasting his thoughts around.” He’s not telling James anything he doesn’t already know.

It’s a few minutes before Robbie’s phone starts up. “Hi—no luck, eh? Don’t you worry, I’ll track him down. Thanks.” He slips the phone back into his pocket and turns his head back to James. “There you are,” he says, “you’re nowhere to be found.” Now there’s a sentence that would’ve been right at home in Morse’s strange play.

James just nods, his head shifting up and down on Robbie’s arm, and Robbie lapses back into silence once more. But it occurs to him that the station isn’t the only place that Alex could come back to. They’re going to have to get James’s locks changed before he leaves his flat again. Even if they both have to call in sick and wait in all day tomorrow.

It’s a while before James clears his throat. And then Robbie feels the slightest increase of pressure on his fingers before James starts to speak: “So, Dr Hobson, she didn’t find him as dishy as me.”

“Apparently not.”

“That was nice to hear. Nice of her to say.”

“Was it?”

“Mmm.”

“I don’t fancy your chances there, lad. She seems right fond of this Franco fellow now.”

“That’s okay. It’s just always nice to hear that someone finds you dishier than your identical twin. Or more—attractive.” _Ah._

Robbie pushes his fingers through James’s a little harder to tighten the clasp between them. God, it’s a bloody relief not to hide this, to be able to touch the lad like this at long last. He gives a deep, resounding sigh.

James’s eyes look up at him in concern, under his lashes. “Has this been a bit much for you today? Having to deal with two of me?”

“I’d bloody _love_ to have two of you.” The words are out of Robbie's mouth before he’s even thought. “Two actual Jameses,” he clarifies. “Not a real and a fake one. One of you could be me smartarse, snarky, clever clogs sergeant at work. Always reading me right and getting me through the day and having me back all the time.”

“And the other one?” James smiles up at him.

“The other one of you could be me own personal James. I wouldn’t be his boss. And then I could do—this to him.”

And Robbie gently disentangles his hand from James’s firm hold. James’s fingers curl in a little around Robbie’s fingers as they withdraw, a mild, involuntary protest. But Robbie lifts his hand from James’s touch all the same, and pushes his fingers instead into James’s hair, letting them tangle, then move gently against a warm scalp, then tangle again. “And this…” he says softly, drawing his palm right down James’s cheek, and turning James’s head, his wide-eyed countenance right towards Robbie.  James’s blue eyes, his startled, dilated blue eyes are very very close now.

Robbie swallows. “Been a bit of a day for you.” His voice catches in his throat and comes out husky. “You sure you’re all right to—”

“It’ll make me all right,” James murmurs very low. He doesn’t let his gaze move from Robbie’s and he’s looking straight into Robbie’s eyes with a yearning surfacing now in his expression that suddenly makes him impossible to resist for a moment longer. Robbie moves his head over that last fraction and lets his mouth meet James’s, lets himself relax with relief into the kiss, meeting all that yearning and warmth with all the desire and protectiveness and need that he’s feeling himself.

***

“I thought earlier that you’d cut that—your hair.” James is safely ensconced in the fold of Robbie’s arm once more although they’re pressed so close together now that his head is against Robbie’s shoulder and it would only take the smallest of movements, to recapture that glorious sensation of kissing James, actually kissing James—

“You thought—oh.”

“Yeah,” murmurs Robbie. “And that’d have been a ruddy shame. Cause then I couldn’t have done…this.” And Robbie cups his hand around the back of James’s head, letting his fingers tangle into soft blond hair once more, to draw James that all-important bit closer again.

“Never cutting it that short, ever again,” James murmurs eventually when they fall apart again. Then he pulls his legs up and curls up, knees angled right into Robbie’s lap, his bent legs resting on Robbie’s thighs. He settles his head back on Robbie’s shoulder, yawning unrestrainedly, much to Robbie’s amusement. “Get some rest, why don’t you,” Robbie suggests. But he’s met with a slight grimace.

“Don’t want to miss anything,” James explains.

Robbie grins at him. What does he figure he can miss if he’s asleep? Robbie will just be sitting here, after all. But he sobers up properly as he registers that James is looking a bit embarrassed, almost.

“I mean—it’s nice, sitting here like this,” James starts, “and I don’t—”

 _You don’t want it to end. And you don’t quite trust that it’s there for the taking now._ Robbie lets his own voice soften. “All right, well, go on, then _._ I’m not going anywhere, am I? I’ll be well happy to sit here.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean—you were there but you weren’t today. It was bloody weird.” Robbie will be more than happy just to sit here and let the lad lie down, watch him rest for a bit, savour his warm presence against him.

But James, surprisingly, doesn’t move his position at all, he simply settles in closer. How the hell does he think he can sleep like that—but then he’s always seemed to fit his long limbs to the confines of Robbie’s own couch on any night that Robbie’s casually pointed out that it’s getting late or that he’s a beer or two past driving and he may find it less hassle than a taxi just to crash there. He’s apparently well able to sleep in rather contorted positions as well as sprawled.

Except now he won’t have to confine himself to the couch anymore. The thought brings a grin of sheer pleasure to Robbie’s face. James tilts his head at him curiously, and then he just gives in and lets his mouth quirk and move straight into a wholehearted grin right back up at Robbie.

Robbie looks down at him there, at that grin of pure delight. “Don’t you ever doubt how important you are to me again, you hear me?” The blond eyebrows move upwards at the sudden vehemence in Robbie’s tone. Robbie doesn’t care. “We can make that an order, if we need to, sergeant?”

“No,” murmurs James, eyes still fixed on Robbie’s.

“All right, then.” Robbie’s not actually fully convinced _._ James will undoubtedly try to have full confidence in what Robbie’s trying to show him that he feels, he’ll try to trust Robbie but—well, it’s no bloody wonder really that his own fears of rejection, his personal demons might take him sometimes. Robbie can prove it, though, he reckons now _._ He can make that his own quiet personal mission. It’ll be no hardship to Robbie Lewis at all, proving with comfort and touch just how much he feels, until that irrevocably comes home to James.

He’s slowly becoming overwhelmed by a wave of contentment now, between the comfort of that warm blond head on his shoulder, and the knowledge that’s beginning to settle into him of all that he’s somehow gained today _._ James’s whole body is relaxing and seems to be shaping itself into Robbie’s.

And after a quiet while he takes in that James is becoming heavier against him, his breathing lengthening out, that he’s pressing in a little further as he starts to let himself drift in towards sleep _._ Robbie can still feel that last kiss that had lingered on his mouth, all the yearning that was still in it, and the urgency, and the promise that held of rather more to come.

It’s a pure gift, this, having this kind-hearted, loyal, bright lad, having James, wanting this, wanting Robbie. Christ, it’ll be hard to stop himself now that he can finally touch him, hold him all he wants, not have to restrain himself _._ And there’s just one more touch Robbie needs now, one he can’t quite let himself leave until later. He raises his hand gently to James’s face, and, with his thumb, he lightly traces that line at the side of James’s chin. Then he lets his thumb linger right there. Until James, stirring, not quite so deeply asleep after all, reaches up a hand himself to tug Robbie’s hand back down and laces his fingers back through Robbie’s, laying claim to both the hand, and to Robbie, as his own to hold once more.  


**Author's Note:**

> Morse gives Lewis "Waiting for Godot" in "Service of All the Dead."


End file.
